A part time stay home dad enjoying (nearly) every minute of it…

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To the Moon and Back

Sometimes it’s 225,622 miles. Sometimes it’s 252,088 miles. But when you zoom in it’s only a few inches.

A little closer…

Keep going…

That’s better!

This is not an image you can see simply by looking up at the moon with your naked eye. Binoculars help. You’re wife’s camera with a 1200mm zoom lens is ideal. You can see the maria (mar-ee-uh) – Latin for “seas”. They are volcanic plains made up of rock similar to rocks found in Hawaii. So if you’re on a tight budget or don’t have time for astronaut training but still want moon-like rocks just go to Hawaii.

You can clearly see the lunar terminator, as well. It’s the line between night and day. Since this moon is waxing it’s being lit from the right (from our perspective). This creates shadows on the inside right of craters and outside left of mountains.

We are are night sky watchers. The moon is easiest thing to watch. The ISS (International Space Station) is also fun to catch. You can look up observation times for your area here. It flies by every 90 minutes but since it doesn’t make its own light you have to catch it right after sunset or right before sunrise when sunlight reflects off of it. But since it’s visible here at 4:30 in the morning, I won’t be seeing it until they start coming by in the evening.

And to think this is the exact same moon every one every where on Earth sees.

Without a decent zoom it’ll look like its 240,000 miles away 🙂 I have a 300mm zoom lens on my camera and even that’s not even close. My wife’s camera zooms in to the same magnification as our telescope.

LOL Nope. Just like here on Earth. When you’re on the moon you can see the Earth’s terminator line. But when you’re on the Earth there’s no definite line between night and day. Same thing on the moon. There’s twilight. Great question, though! Thanks for asking. It does look like there’s a definite difference between light and dark.